A black and white photo of the Ware Youth Detention Facility from the road. It is surrounded by thick clusters of trees and is a white facility with a brick roof.

‘Dying Inside’: Chaos and cruelty in Louisiana juvenile

Meg Shutzer (‘20) and Rachel Mueller's (‘20) deeply reported investigation into the Ware Youth Center in Louisiana publishes on the front page of The New York Times

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A woman stands at a church pulpit, delivering a sermon in her pink t-shirt and short curly hair. The pulpit, adorned with a white cloth featuring gold crosses, is complemented by flowers in front. Behind her, a screen with text and a plaque on the wall add context to her message on investigative journalism.

Making churches more welcoming for members with dementia

Celeste Hamilton Dennis ('24) reports on a program to make church services more welcoming to members with dementia. ‘We don’t want them to think they’re forgotten.’

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A black and white photo of the Ware Youth Detention Facility from the road. It is surrounded by thick clusters of trees and is a white facility with a brick roof.

‘Dying Inside’: Chaos and cruelty in Louisiana juvenile

Meg Shutzer (‘20) and Rachel Mueller's (‘20) deeply reported investigation into the Ware Youth Center in Louisiana publishes on the front page of The New York Times

LEARN MORE
Logo for the Investigative Reporting Program at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. The words "Investigative Reporting Program" are split diagonally, with the top part in dark gray-blue and the bottom part in a lighter gray, symbolizing Berkeley Journalism’s commitment to deep-dive reporting.

We are committed to producing stories that expose injustice and abuse of power while training the next generation of journalists in the highest standards of our craft.

The Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism is a nonprofit newsroom and teaching institute led by four-time Pulitzer Prize winner David Barstow.

Through the IRP, Berkeley Journalism students gain real-world experience under expert guidance. Our professional staff of practicing investigative reporters and editors advise students as they conceive and execute on ambitious reporting projects. This student-centered approach has resulted in high-impact investigations for media outlets such as the Washington Post, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, The New York Times and PBS Frontline. Read our most recent stories here.

We are proud to be part of Berkeley Journalism’s efforts to expand who is given the opportunity to become a reporter. For the IRP, this means we are dedicated to making investigative reporting accessible to all Berkeley Journalism students as we actively work to diversify the profession.

Read Our Stories

Ian Smith with his son and daughter, who each have their hands on Ian's shoulders. His daughter is wearing a sundress and his son is wearing a purple t-shirt. Both have long brown hair, Ian's hair is short and white and he's wearing a white and black checkered shirt.

After police killings, families are kept in the dark and grilled for information

Brian Howey ('23) reports on how police officers are trained to grill family members after police shootings. This story was Brian's investigation in Prof. David Barstow's second year investigative reporting seminar.

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Graphic illustration of a patient, whose head we cannot see, in a hospital bed with one hand outstretched. The background is dark blue, with blue curtains and blankets.

When Private Equity Takes Over a Nursing Home

Yasmin Rafiei, the IRP's reporter-in-residence, reports on the devastating decline in residents’ care and increase in deaths after the acquisition of St. Joseph’s Home for the Aged.

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Green and black digital illustration of a person sitting with a laptop in front of an green eye filled with binary code, when the animation changes the eye becomes a green cloud above the person at their laptop.

The Black Box: Colleges spend thousands on AI to prevent suicides and shootings. Evidence that it works is scant.

The second installment of Ari Sen (22) and Dereka Bennett's (22) investigation into how colleges use AI to monitor students published by The Dallas Morning News

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Meet Our People

A middle-aged man with gray hair, wearing a light blue checkered shirt, stands outdoors in front of green foliage and a beige building. With a neutral expression, he looks directly at the camera, embodying the thoughtful composure often seen in Berkeley Journalism professionals.

David Barstow

Reva and David Logan Distinguished Chair in Investigative Journalism

David Barstow leads the Investigative Reporting Program at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. He is a former senior writer at The New York Times and the first reporter to ever win four Pulitzer Prizes.

View faculty profile

https://journalism.berkeley.edu/person/aschell/Staff

Bernice Yeung
Managing Director/Managing Editor

Christine Schiavo
Local News Editor

Garrett Therolf
Senior Reporter & Contributing Editor

Gisela Pérez de Acha
Reporter

Kathryn Hurd
Reporter

Kate Raphael 

Reporter

Sasha Schell

Reporter

Lisa Pickoff-White

Director of Research, California Reporting Project

Katey Rusch
Record Requests Manager and Data Journalist

Yasmin Rafiei
Reporter in Residence

Aysha Pettigrew
Director of Operations

Lowell Bergman
Founder

 

Student Reporters

Lili Cortes ('25)

Elizabeth Santos ('25)

Julian Wray ('25)

Our Partners

Our Funders

We receive major support from these foundations

The IRP was founded with a gift from Reva and David Logan, which created an endowed faculty position, the Reva and David Logan Distinguished Chair in Investigative Journalism. The IRP offices are sponsored by a generous gift from the Heising-Simons Foundation to the University of California, which allowed the university to purchase a building for the IRP and The Daily Californian.

Individual donors also provide major program support and have long been the base of our funding.

If you are interested in supporting the IRP, donations can be given to specific programs or general operations.

The Logan Symposium brings together a Who’s Who of top investigative journalists to address the critical issues confronting the field. The event also convenes newsroom leaders, as well as media attorneys, academics, major foundations and philanthropists who support journalism in the public interest. Hosted by Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program since 2007, this intimate gathering is held in honor of Reva and David Logan, whose generosity helped establish the IRP. The Logan Symposium is an invitation-only event. If you'd like to attend, please reach out to the Investigative Reporting Program directly.

The Logan Symposium

Open Source Investigative Reporting

Open Source Investigations

The Investigative Reporting Program has partnered with Berkeley Law's Human Rights Center to develop and pilot the nation’s first open source investigative reporting class at a university. We've been refining, experimenting and mastering how to teach what has never been taught – the art and science of integrating cutting-edge OSINT techniques into traditional shoe-leather investigative reporting for all mediums.

Contact Us

Investigative Reporting Program
Graduate School of Journalism
2481 Hearst Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94709
Phone: (510) 643-1386
Email: ucberkeleyirp@berkeley.edu

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